I largely agree with you, but I think that there’s something we as rationalists can realize about these disagreements, which helps us avoid many of the most mind-killing pitfalls.
You want to be right, not be perceived as right. What really matters, when the policies are made and people live and die, is who was actually right, not who people think is right. So the pressure to be right can be a good thing, if you leverage it properly into actually trying to get the truth. If you use it to dismiss and suppress everything that suggests you are wrong, that’s not being right; it’s being perceived as right, which is a totally different thing. (See also the Litany of Tarski.)
I largely agree with you, but I think that there’s something we as rationalists can realize about these disagreements, which helps us avoid many of the most mind-killing pitfalls.
You want to be right, not be perceived as right. What really matters, when the policies are made and people live and die, is who was actually right, not who people think is right. So the pressure to be right can be a good thing, if you leverage it properly into actually trying to get the truth. If you use it to dismiss and suppress everything that suggests you are wrong, that’s not being right; it’s being perceived as right, which is a totally different thing. (See also the Litany of Tarski.)